


Tout Doucement

by androgenius



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-11
Updated: 2012-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-11 21:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/483262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius/pseuds/androgenius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s twenty-five and a different person when he sees her again, in a small Starbucks in Chelsea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tout Doucement

He’s twenty-five and a different person when he sees her again, in a small Starbucks in Chelsea. 

Midtown might have been more expected, theatre district and all— his own go-to coffeeshop before finally abandoning Brooklyn and moving to Manhattan himself used to be there, right across the street from the Gershwin, close to everything he’s always loved that has never let him down.

Moving to Chelsea brings things closer, conveniently offering him a coffeeshop right across the street of his apartment building. 

No doorman yet, but he’d get there. 

Using the trust fund would feel like a betrayal of himself. No— he wants to earn this, properly.

Still, back to the matter of the coffeeshop. 

Midtown would have been more expected. On the other hand, that would have meant seeing Rachel again so much sooner than he might have otherwise expected. Not that this is exactly expected, but. He wouldn’t have been ready to see her again, then, even if he can’t say with absolute certainty that he’s ready now.

Thanking the girl handing him his coffee with a slight incline of his head, he moves to sit at a respectable distance, watching her from his spot by the window. She’s turned away from him, and he’s glad, because seeing either disappointment or hope flash across her eyes isn’t something he’s sure he’s ready to handle just yet. 

The first glance goes down to her left hand, not surprisingly. He heard news, distant and vague, no more than rumors, really, years ago, that Rachel had gotten engaged to Hudson. But from the look of her left ring finger, she’s as single as ever.

Not that he cares.

The next glance goes down to the paper in her hands. She’s holding a highlighter, muttering to herself— lines. 

Good. So she hasn’t given her dream up just yet. 

A brief survey of her table only solidifies the idea— she’s hogged the entire honey jar— typically confined to the condiment counter— to her table alone.

Definitely musical theatre, then.

Her looks are, of course, as always, immaculately sculpted, even if her dress choices are still just as Rachel Berry as he’s used to. Still, the way her hair flows freely down her back, catching the light just right still has him staring, no matter how intent the arch of her brow in concentration at the words on the page before her may be, almost to the point of frowning.

He sees her the next day, and the day after that, and he decides, very quickly from that point forward, that the reason he doesn’t have a doorman at his apartment building, might very well be solely due to coffee consumption and money he wastes heedlessly at Starbucks. 

At night, when he’s not supposed to be thinking of her, he can’t do anything but, and every stroke of his hand over his cock in the shower leaves him thinking about pink and white sundresses, the way she got rid of her bangs again and still keeps her phone covered in rhinestones.

It takes him another two weeks for a brief glance over her shoulder at the lines she’s memorizing on his walk back to his seat, and he smiles to himself. 

She always had been headed straight to the top, at least in his opinion.

The three weeks following has him waiting for the opening of her show, a new musical, and another two are devoted to his faltering, the inherent fear that she doesn’t want to see him. 

But he finally makes it.

It’s cold that night, chilly enough to warrant a coat, and he waits for everyone else to leave before he finally meets her at the stage door again.

No flowers, no grand gestures. 

Just Jesse.

And he’s never seen her smile so wide.


End file.
